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Introduction
1. Rationale
In the late 1970s and 1980s, Discourse Analysis was greatly influenced by a number of
studies. Halliday emphasized the social functions of language. In Britain, Sinclair and
Coulhard developed a model for the description of Teacher-Pupil talk; other similar works
have dealt with Doctor-Patient interaction, interviews, debates and so on. Meanwhile, in
America, the work of Goffman, Sack and Jefferson is important in the study of
conversation, turn-taking, and other aspects of spoken interactions. Thus, Discourse
Analysis is a rapidly expanding field, providing insights into various aspects of language in
use and therefore of great importance to language teaching. Traditionally, language
teaching has dealt with pronunciation, grammar and vocabulary; but now it is Discourse
Analysis that raises our awareness of how to put this knowledge into action to gain
successful communication.
Business letters in general and letters of enquiry in particular have long been considered as
key documents in the business context due to the fact that Vietnam nowadays is step by
step adhering to the development in the world. Consequently, we have joined a lot of
international organizations and corporations; we also have signed international documents
particularly in the business transactions with other countries. Among those documents and
texts, business correspondence plays a key role. In fact, writing business correspondence is
becoming a more and more important task in many corporations and companies. The letter
of enquiry is indeed significant among various kinds of business letters thanks to its
frequency in use. So many factors have to be taken into consideration in the process of
writing a letter of enquiry; namely the format, the style, the language, so on and so forth.
Additionally, the knowledge of cohesion and coherence is greatly essential in discourse
construction and comprehension for communication. Cohesion and coherence are actually
regarded as the important aspects of language usage.
With all the reasons above, the author would like to choose “An Analysis of Lexical
Cohesive Devices in English Letters of Enquiry” as the topic of this study
2. Aims of the study
The main aims of the thesis are as follows:
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1. To identify lexical cohesive devices used in English Letters of Enquiry.
2. To realize the role and contribution of lexical cohesive devices to successful
letters of enquiry.
3. The research questions of the study
In order to achieve the aims stated, the study is meant to find out the answer to 2 following
research questions:
1. What are the lexical cohesive devices used in English Letters of Enquiry?
2. How do lexical cohesive devices contribute to the success of a letter of enquiry?
4. Assumptions of the study
In conducting the research, I have assumed that there are some differences in the use of
lexical cohesive devices in English enquiry letters and in other kinds of text and each
lexical cohesive device plays a different role in terms of importance level in the success of
a letter of enquiry. I drew heavily, among many publications, on Brown and Yule’s (1983)
Discourse Analysis and on the classic study of Cohesion in English by Halliday and
Hasan (1976).
5. Significance of the study
Theoretical significance: This study contributes to verifying the correctness and
significance related to linguistic theories in discourse analysis by working on a certain kind
of discourse (Letters of Enquiry).
Practical significance: This thesis helps gaining an insight into the use of lexical cohesive
devices in the Letters of Enquiry.
6. Scope of the study
This study focuses on the lexical cohesive devices in only one kind of business
correspondence, namely the Letter of Enquiry in English. The paper explores the
process in which coherence is achieved in the formal written genre of letters of
enquiry. As explicitness, conciseness and unambiguity are fundamental qualities in
such a discourse, the main emphasis is put on lexical cohesive devices, such as
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repetition or careful use of synonymy. Data analyzed is taken from 15 English letters
of enquiry chosen randomly.
7. Methodology
7.1. The data of the study
The data is taken from 15 English Letters of Enquiry chosen randomly from some foreign
corporations and organizations.
7.2. Methods of the study
To attain the aims of the study, the research shall conduct the following activities:
Firstly, set up a framework of lexical cohesive devices in order to find out the defining
characteristics of Letters of Enquiry as a genre.
Secondly, three previous studies on lexical cohesive devices used in other types of genre
are reviewed to latter compare with the use of lexical cohesive devices in letters of
enquiry.
Thirdly, various letters of enquiry are collected and analyzed in terms of lexical cohesive
devices: reiteration and collocations. All the 15 letters are analyzed to identify the lexical
cohesive devices used, their frequencies of occurrence are counted, and it is through this
process that the significance level of each device to the letters is made clear.
Finally, necessary comments and conclusions are made according to the data analyzed.
The approach to the study is both inductive and deductive, based on a collection of sample
letters of enquiry.
8. Design of the study
Within the scope mentioned above, the study consists of three main parts: introduction,
development, and conclusion
Part B (Development) is divided into four chapters. In the first chapter, Literature Review,
theoretical knowledge of cohesive devices and Letters of Enquiry is presented. The second
chapter deals with the literature review of some previous studies on the similar issue. The
third chapter, also the main one of the study, focuses on the analysis of the lexical cohesive
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devices employed in the English letters of enquiry. In the last chapter, we attempt to
present some findings and implications.
Chapter I. Theoretical Background
1.1. Discourse and Discourse Analysis
1.1.1. Discourse Analysis
Discourse analysis is concerned with the study of the relationship between language and
the context in which it is used. This has been developed from the works of different
disciplines in the 1960s and early 1970s, including linguistics, semiotics, psychology,
anthropology, and sociology. Discourse analysts study language in use: written texts and
spoken data of all kinds under the approach different from those old grammarians. There
have been numerous interpretations to what is meant by Discourse Analysis.
British discourse analysis was mainly influenced by M.A.K. Halliday’s functional
approach to language. Halliday’s framework emphasized the social function of language
and the thematic and informational structure of speech and writing. De Beaugrande (1980),
Halliday and Hasan (1976) as well as Prague School of linguists have made their
significant contribution to this branch of linguistics in pointing out the link between
grammar and discourse.
Yule (1996: 139) states: “In the study of language, some of the most interesting questions
arise in connection with the way language is ‘used’, rather than what its components are.
(…) We were, in effect, asking how it is that language-users interpret what other language-
users intend to convey. When we carry this investigation further and ask how it is that we,
as language-users, make sense of what we read in texts, understand what speakers mean
despite what they say, recognize connected as opposed to jumbled or incoherent discourse,
and successfully take part in that complex activity called conversation, we are undertaking
what is known as discourse analysis.”
As can be noticed clearly, the term “discourse analysis” is very ambiguous. For the sake of
research, we would like to take the definition from Hoa’s (2000) An Introducition to
Discourse Analysis as the base of our study: Discourse analysis is considered “as a study
of how and for what purposes language is used in a certain context of situation and the
linguistic means to carry out these purposes”
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1.1.2. Discourse and Text
The Longman Dictionary of Language Teaching and Applied Linguistics (1998) defines
discourse as follows: “Discourse is a general term for example of language use, i.e.
language has been produced as the result of an act of communication.” Sharing the same
concern, many other linguists have so far given definitions of discourse. Widdowson
(1979) states: “Discourse is a use of sentences to perform acts of communication which
cohere into larger communicative units, ultimately establishing a rhetorical pattern which
characterizes the pieces of language as a whole as a kind of communication.” Whereas
Crystal (1992: 25) says: “Discourse is a continuous stretch of language larger than a
sentence, often constituting a coherent unit such as a sermon, argument, joke or a
narrative.” Quite differently from the others, Halliday and Hasan (1976) give a simple
definition: “We can define text (discourse) in the simplest way perhaps by saying that it is
language that is functional.”
Linguists have paid much attention to the distinction between a discourse and a text since
confusion of these two terms may result in the failures of discourse analysis. Even though
that the distinction is not always clear and the two terms are used interchangeably by some
linguists. As in the above-mentioned definition of discourse by Halliday and Hasan, “text”
is employed to refer to “discourse”; they see “text” as a “semantic unit” characterized by
cohesion. The two authors state: “A text is a passage of discourse which coherent in these
two regards: it is coherent with respect to the context of situation, and therefore consistent
in register; and it is coherent with respect to itself, and therefore cohesive” (1976: 23). For
some other linguists, “text” is used for writing and “discourse” for speech. The third group
of linguists like Brown & Yule, Nunan, Widdowson, and Cook see discourse as a process
and text as a product. Brown & Yule argue that text is the representation of discourse and
the verbal record of a communicative act.
In this study, we would like to take Widdowson’s viewpoint of the difference and the
interrelationship between the two as the base: “Discourse is a communicative process by
means of interaction. Its situational outcome is a change in state of affairs: information is
conveyed, intentions made clear, its linguistic product is Text.” (1984: 100)
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1.1.3. Discourse Context
1.1.3.1. Context
David Nunan (1993: 7) defines: “Context refers to the situation giving use to the discourse,
and within which the discourse is embedded.” According to him, context consists of two
types: linguistic and non-linguistic. Linguistic context is in fact referred to as co-text. It
surrounds or accompanies the piece of discourse under analysis. Non-linguistic context
was first noticed by the anthropologist Malinowski who created the terms “context of
situation” and “context of culture”. His idea was later taken up by Firth (1957) who placed
great emphasis on the “social context”. Firth saw the context of situation as crucial
determinants of utterance meaning. However, like Malinowski, Firth did not provide a
theoretical account of the effect of context on utterance meaning.
Lately, Halliday and Hasan (1976) focus on context of situation when they report the study
of Malinowski (1923). The three headings field, mode, and tenor which had been proposed
for these are considered highly general concepts for describing how the context of situation
determines the kinds of meaning that are expressed. Yet, according to Halliday and Hasan,
the linguistic features, which are typically associated with a configuration of situational
features – with particular values of the field, mode, and tenor - constitute a register.
1.1.3.2. Register
Generally speaking, there are different ways to define register. Halliday and Hasan (1976:
23) defines: “The register is the set of meanings, the configuration of semantic patterns,
that are typically drawn upon under the specified conditions, along with the words and
structures that are used in the realization of these meanings.” They acknowledge that the
concept of cohesion needs to be supplemented by that of register since the two together
effectively define a text.
Register is the linguistic feature of the text that reflects the social context in which it is
produced. It reflects the degree of formality of the particular text by using a characteristic
set of lexical and grammatical features that are compatible with the particular register. A
lower register is represented by the use of more colloquial and everyday-type vocabulary
and fewer complex grammatical forms while a higher register requires the use of lexical
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items that are professional or academic in nature along with denser grammatical structure,
resulting in a more literate spoken or written text. Register is theorized by Halliday and
Hasan (1985) in terms of the contextual variables of field, mode, and tenor.
Field: In the view of Halliday and Hasan (1976: 22), the field of discourse is “the total
event, in which the text is functioning, together with the purposive activity of speaker or
writer.” Therefore, they argue that field includes the subject-matter as one element in it.
Field is also considered to refer to what is happening, to the nature of the social action that
is taking place. Hatim and Mason share the same idea in that field is different from subject
matter because one field maybe characterized by a variety of subject matters.
Mode: The mode of discourse refers to the medium of the language activity including
channel. Channel is an important aspect of mode. Hatim and Mason (1990) show their
view of mode as follows: “The mode of discourse refers to what part the language is
playing, what is that the participants are expecting the language to do for them in that
situation, the symbolic organization of the text, the status that it has, and its function in the
context, including the channel (is it spoken or written or some combination of the two?)
and also rhetorical mode, what is being achieved by the text in terms of such categories as
persuasive, expository, didactic, and the like.”
Tenor: As for Halliday and Hasan, “the tenor refers to the type of role interaction, the set
of relevant social relations, permanent and temporary, among the participants involved.” It
is the tenor that relays the relationship between the addresser and the addressee. In more
detailed, the tenor of discourse is considered to refer to who is taking part, their statuses
and roles. This also points out what kinds of role relationship got among the participants.
In summary, field, mode, and tenor of discourse are in a dialectical relationship. Hatim and
Mason (1990: 51) affirm this: “These three variables are independent: a given level of
formality (tenor) influences and is influenced by a particular level of technicality (field) in
an appropriate channel of communication (mode).”
1.1.3.3. Genre
Discourse is frequently studied from the perspective of register (level of formality) or
genre (communicative purpose, audience, and conventionalized style and format). A genre
is a culturally and linguistically distinct form of discourse such as narrative, exposition,
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procedural discourse, etc. In recent years, genre has been a controversial topic for a large
number of linguists who form the two main trends.
For the systematic linguists, texts have their specific linguistic form to correspond to their
social purposes. Text is the realization of social practices and this relationship is mutually
predictive. This group of scholars put social context into two communication planes, one
of which is genre or context of culture, the other is register of context of situation.
The other linguists see the relationship between context and language in quite opposite
direction. They classify genre as smaller parts of registers. For instance, Couture (1986,
quoted in Swales, 1990:41) states: “Unlike register, genre can only be realized in
completed texts or texts that can be projected as complete, for a genre does more than
specify kinds of code extant in a group of related texts; it specifies conditions for
beginning, continuing, and ending a text.” According to Swales (1990) and Bhatia
(1993:13), “a genre is a recognizable communicative event characterized by a set of
communicative purpose(s) identified and mutually understood by the members of the
professional and academic community in which it regularly occurs.”
In short, the study follows the latter point of view in which genre is understood as a sub-
type of register as one register may include different genres. For example, a story can be a
myth, a legend, or a tale. The relationship among these elements is that language is
realized through registers, and registers are in turn realized through genres and texts.
1.1.4. Spoken and Written Discourse
Spoken and written discourses represent different modes for expressing linguistic meaning.
Despite some similarities, these two forms of discourse are basically different from each
other. The major difference between them is taken from the fact that spoken discourse is
changeable and written is permanent.
Spoken discourse is often less planned and orderly, more open to intervention by the
receiver while the written one is well structured and the possibilities for subordinate
participants are very limited. Brown and Yule (1983) suggest that spoken and written
discourse serve various functions: the first is used for the establishment and maintenance
of human relationship (interactional use); and the second for the working out of and
transference of information (transactional use).
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This study focuses on cohesion in written discourse of letters of enquiries, regarded as the
product of a communicative process. Therefore, disciplines of discourse analysis must be
followed carefully.
1.2. Cohesion
1.2.1. The Concept of Cohesion
The concept of cohesion is closely connected with text. It is defined as the grammatical
and lexical relationship between different elements of a text. According to Yule (1996), a
text is usually considered to have a certain structure which depends on factors quite
different from those required in the structure of a single sentence. Some among those
factors are described in terms of cohesion, or the ties and connections which exist within a
text.
Halliday and Hasan (1976:4) also define cohesion in a similar way: “The concept of
cohesion is a semantic one; it refers to relations of meaning that exist within the text, and
that define it as a text.” They also point out that cohesion often occurs where the
interpretation of some elements in the discourse is dependent on that of another.
To summarize, cohesion refers to the linguistic elements that make a discourse
semantically coherent; or as Hoa (2000: 23) indicated “cohesion refers to the formal
relationship that causes texts to cohere or stick together”.
1.2.2. Cohesion vs. Coherence
The distinction between cohesion and coherence has not always been clarified partly
because both terms come from the same verb cohere which means sticking together. In
fact, cohesion is the network of different kinds of formal relations that provide links
between or among various parts of a text, and is expressed partly through the grammar and
partly through the vocabulary. Coherence, on the other hand, is understood as the quality
of being meaningful and unified. As for Nunan (1993), coherence is “the feeling that
sequences of sentences or utterances seem to hang together”. Coherence refers to the type
of semantic and rhetorical relationship that underlines texts.
If cohesion refers to the linguistic elements that make a discourse semantically coherent,
then coherence involves with what makes a text semantically meaningful.
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Cohesion is the realization of coherence, and coherence is something created by the
readers in the act of reading the text. The two categories represent the interrelated aspects
that make a text or discourse coherent and different from random ones. In short, coherence
is embodied by a system of cohesive devices and cohesion is mainly used to ensure
coherence.
1.2.3. Cohesion and Discourse Structure
According to Halliday and Hasan (1976: 10), discourse structure is a type of structure – the
structure of some postulated unit higher than a sentence such as a paragraph, or some
larger entity such as episode or topic unit. The concept of cohesion is set up to account for
relations in discourse without the implication that there are some structural units that are
above the sentence. Cohesion, in this view, refers to the range of possibilities that exist for
linking something with what has been previously mentioned.
They also affirm the possibility of setting up discourse structure, including some entity as
paragraph or topic unit. The structure is considered to truly exist in these cases, at least in
certain genres or registers of discourse. Though we cannot show whether there is a
functional relation between two sentences, or a similar unit, we can specify a limited
number of possible structures, such as types of modification or subordination, transitivity
or modal expressions and the like. Instead, the two authors assure: “We have to show how
sentences, which are structurally independent of one another, may be linked together
through particular features of their interpretation; and it is for this that the concept of
cohesion is required.”
1.2.4. Types of Cohesion
According to Halliday and Hasan (1976), the classification of cohesion is based on the
linguistic form. The type of cohesion depends either on semantic relation in the linguistic
system or on lexico-grammatical relations. In other words, the cohesive relation can be
interpreted as being either lexicogrammatical in nature or semantic. It can be made clearer
in the following description:
Nature of cohesive relation Type of cohesion
Relatedness of form Substitution and ellipsis; lexical collocation
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[...]... statistics of collocation We, therefore, can present the findings of reiteration only The first researched was an M.A thesis named “A Contrastive Analysis of English and Vietnamese Sales Letters” by Tran Thi Thanh Hai (2001) After examining thirty English sales letters, Hai comes to the conclusion of the frequency of occurrence of reiteration as follows Table 2.1 The frequency of occurrence of reiteration in . Contrastive Analysis of English and
Vietnamese Sales Letters” by Tran Thi Thanh Hai (2001). After examining thirty English
sales letters, Hai comes to the